If you enjoy reading fairytales, folklore, or mythology, try some of these modern versions and retellings.
Beauty and the Beast:
Beastly
Alex Flinn
A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë’s most beloved novel describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester.
Valiant: a Modern Tale of Faerie
Holly Black
Seventeen-year-old Valerie Russell finds herself bound into service by a troll named Ravus. He is as hideous as he is honorable. And as Val grows to know him, she finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her friends.
Cinderella:
Bound
Donna Jo Napoli
Xing Xing lives a hard life under the oppressive rule of Stepmother and Sister until one magical night when she attends the annual festival in disguise and meets a prince whose love for her changes everything.
Ash
Malinda Lo
Forced into becoming an indentured servant when her family dies, Ash lives a lonely and desperate life with no hopes for the future, until she meets Kaisa, the King's royal Huntress, who teaches her to love, live, and dream once again
The Swan Princess:
Amiri & Odette: a Love Story
Walter Dean Myers
A boy searches for his newfound love among the city streets, to find that, unwarily, she's been caught in the arms of an evil street lord who means her harm. It is only through perseverance and undying love that the girl is returned to the safety of her one true love.
*Always feel free to ask your librarian for more suggestions!*
Sleeping Beauty:
Briar Rose
Jane Yolen
A tale of castles, of mists and thorns, of a beautiful sleeping princess, and an astonishing revelation of death and rebirth. A tale that will leave you changed forever. The tale of Briar Rose.
Twelve Dancing Princesses:
Princess of Glass
Jessica Day George
Princess Poppy has reluctantly agreed to take part in a royal exchange program, whereby young princes and princesses travel to each other's countries in the name of better political alliances--and potential marriages. It's got the makings of a fairy tale--until a hapless servant named Eleanor is tricked by a vengeful fairy godmother into competing with Poppy for the eligible prince.
Original Fairy Tales:
Fairest
Gail Carson Levine
In the kingdom of Ayortha, who is the fairest of them all? Certainly not Aza. She is thoroughly convinced that she is ugly. What she may lack in looks, though, she makes up for with a kind heart, and with something no one else has–a magical voice. Her vocal talents captivate all who hear them, and in Ontio Castle they attract the attention of a handsome prince – and a dangerous queen.
Goose Chase
Patricia Kindl
Rather than marry a cruel king or a seemingly dim-witted prince, an enchanted goose girl endures imprisonment, capture by several ogresses, and other dangers, before learning exactly who she is.
The Looking Glass Wars
Frank Beddor
When she is cast out of Wonderland by her evil aunt Redd, young Alyss Heart finds herself living in Victorian Oxford as Alice Liddell and struggles to keep memories of her kingdom intact until she can return and claim her rightful throne.
The Poison Eaters: and Other Stories
Holly Black
A collection of short stories includes two dark tales set in the world of Tithe, a tour of a fairy market, and the story of a girl who challenges the devil to a competitive eating match.
Zombies vs. Unicorns
Justine Larbalestier, Holly Black
Twelve short stories by a variety of authors seek to answer the question of whether zombies are better than unicorns.
Wicked Lovely
by Melissa Marr
Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.
I Was a Teenage Fairy
Francesca Lia Block
A feisty, sexy fairy helps a young girl heal traumas of her past.
Folklore and Mythology:
The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore
W. B. Yeats
Rooted in myth, occult mysteries, and belief in magic, these enchanting stories from the great Irish poet are populated by a lively cast of sorcerers, fairies, ghosts, and nature spirits.
Starcrossed
Josephine Angelini
How do you defy destiny?
Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder.
Sirena
Donna Jo Napoli
The gods grant immortality to the mermaid Sirena when she rescues a human man from the sea and they fall in love, but his mortality creates great conflict between love and honor when he is called to defend Greece in the Trojan War.
The Monstrumologist
Rick Yancey
In 1888, twelve-year-old Will Henry chronicles his apprenticeship with Dr. Warthrop, a New England scientist who hunts and studies real-life monsters, as they discover and attempt to destroy a pod of Anthropophagi.
Sweet Venom
Tera Lynn Childs
As monsters walk the streets of San Francisco, unseen by humans, three teenaged descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned in Greek mythology, must reunite and embrace their fates.
